Together, Apart, and Forever
by Marg Hammerman
Summary: This is an ongoing series of vignettes about the history of Kitty and Kurt's relationship, gallivanting around the globe and across eras, realities, and solar systems. Sometimes, it seems like they've gone everywhere, seen everything. Yet love may be the greatest adventure of all... Comics Kurtty with a special appearance by Kurt Darkholme. Was rated "T," now upgraded to "M."
1. The Beach

_**Preamble**_... I'm too busy for anything really long right now, but these vignettes are a compromise gesture :) There's no particular chronological order at the moment, though I may rearrange it at a future date. Each chapter is a stand-alone min-fic (you can jump right in here!), yet can also be read as fitting in with the rest of my Kitty/Kurt-verse (_Parts of a Whole, A Different Sameness, Whole into Parts_). I'm not sure how many chapters there will ultimately be, but until I decide I'm "done," I'll try to post one chapter/vignette per month (fingers crossed!).

One final thing: This was originally published with a "T" rating, but I've bumped it up to "M" since updating with new chapters.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the X-Men, so I don't make a thin dime writing about them.

As usual, reviews are great! Also as usual, a heartfelt thank you to all those who support and inspire—you know who you are ;)

**The Beach**

*set in the aftermath of _Uncanny X-Men_ #150

Two hours had passed since Kitty came face-to-face with her first super-villain, and lived. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd survived, though she had an unsettling premonition dumb luck had a lot to do with it. The only thing Kitty remembered for sure from her encounter with Magneto was the pain, a pain unlike any she'd ever experienced, a pain that penetrated her limbs and blood and nerves even in her phased state. After that, she'd blacked out. When she awoke, she was cradled in Ororo's arms, and Magneto was long gone.

Now, the X-Men were taking their time repairing the Blackbird, enjoying a few precious hours of mid-afternoon rest amid the sand, tropical sun and palm trees surrounding Magneto's ruined base. For a while, Kitty had joined them. Gradually, however, the din of voices had overwhelmed her, and she'd had to get away, to find some quiet spot to think, for a moment, about how close she'd come to never thinking anything again. So she'd ventured some distance down the white sand beach, away from the base and the Blackbird and her friends, and found a comfortable spot leaning against the truck of a palm tree, shading herself under its faintly rattling leaves.

Staring out at the calm, turquoise ocean stretching out toward the cloudless, azure sky, Kitty marvelled at the stillness, amazed by the indifference of the water and the sky and the birds overhead. The tranquility was equal parts troubling and profound; she simultaneously pondered her own insignificance and thanked both indifferent nature and every god she could remember that she was still alive.

After a time, she knew she wanted company, but couldn't quite decide what type. She thought of Peter, conjuring in her mind's eye a vision of his blue eyes and black hair, his square jaw with its tiny dimple. In her mind he was smiling, flashing his perfect, straight white teeth. Yet, try as she might, she couldn't imagine that smile reaching his eyes; instead, they remained elusive, always looking elsewhere, above her head or behind her shoulder.

Ororo would be okay, except that Kitty was feeling more confused than ever about the nature of their relationship. Kitty found Ororo's presence comforting, yet she sometimes experienced a jitter of withdrawal afterwards that made her wonder at the nature of that comfort. Perhaps what she really experienced inside Ororo's arms or under her watchful gaze was a sense of awe, losing herself in Ororo's glorious aura.

Scott was an obvious impossibility, as was the Professor, whose attention was a nightmare at the best of times. Kitty knew exactly how such an exchange would play out: the Professor would ask her what was wrong, telling her he never read her mind without permission even as his cool, intense stare bored into her, suggesting quite the opposite. Logan's company was out of the question only because Kitty was forced to like him secretly; Logan and Kitty upheld a silent contract not to acknowledge their bond for fear of shattering it, Logan's studied disaffection allowing only mild teasing and the occasional furtive, honest glance.

In the end, the right kind of company came from the last place Kitty expected. She heard a shuffle of movement to her left, and looked up. As she did, the sun flashed in her eyes, turning the approaching body into a silhouette. For a moment, he was only a man, only loosely-set, square shoulders and flat pecs above a narrow waist of tight abs. His sashaying tail gave him away a split-second before his voice did; to Kitty, Kurt's warm, German-accented lilt was as unique as the sleek indigo fur that came into focus as he stepped into the shade, or the two-fingered hand that held out a bottle of water.

"I thought you might be thirsty," said Kurt. "Not very exotic, but it gets the job done."

Kitty looked past the water bottle to Kurt's velvet-coated midsection. He was wearing nothing but a pair of black swim briefs, and patches of his fur were dark and shiny with sweat. Kitty was suddenly and unwillingly conscious of the fact that she'd never seen Kurt so very nearly naked, so very close.

"Katzchen…?"

"Sorry," Kitty said quickly, blinking decisively as she accepted the water. "I just… don't think I've ever seen you sweat."

Kurt raised a sceptical eyebrow. "That's surprising, considering how rarely you see me when I'm _not_ scrambling for my life, in the Danger Room or out of it."

Kitty bit the inside or her cheek, dropping her eyes to her toes, burrowing deeper into the white sand. She wanted a sip of water, but instead found herself picking the bottle's label with the edge of her fingernail.

In a small, uncertain voice she offered, "Maybe I just never really noticed."

"Probably because I'm so cool under pressure," Kurt assured her, dropping his shoulder against the tree trunk next to hers and folding his arms over his chest. "But seriously—fur and tropical temperatures really _don't_ mix. I was designed for cooler climates."

Kitty didn't feel up to meeting his gaze, those reflectionless, glowing orbs that both repelled and penetrated. She wasn't scared of that gaze anymore—not really. Yet no amount of tropical heat could quell the reflexive shiver that spread over her body whenever she remembered the first time Kurt's eyes had filled hers, embodying all her childhood fears. Twin points of light in a face so shadow-dark it became one with the night, those luminous almonds had been all the imagined watchers in the dark: the monster under the bed, in the closet, at the foot of the basement stairs.

Yet the alternatives to Kurt's gaze were almost worse; there was only the endless, humbling expanse of the ocean, her own body, or Kurt's—that body that was so strange it almost demanded touching, if only to confirm under one's own familiar hands the reality of its strangeness.

Following an agonizing internal debate, Kitty settled for blurring her vision, fighting a distracted impulse to follow the single bead of sweat weaving its way through Kurt's indigo fur, snaking between the darker ripples of his abs toward the pitch-black crevice of his belly button.

"Do you really think that?" she asked.

"What?"

"That you were… designed."

"In which sense?"

"I mean, do you really think there's a purpose behind it. Behind us. Behind Magneto. All of it."

Kurt inhaled a deep breath. "I think… Life is something you're given. Purpose is something you make for yourself."

"What about mutants?"

"What about them?"

"Magneto thinks we're the next step in evolution. That someday, everyone will be like us."

"I don't know if anyone can know that for sure. Coming from Magneto, it sounds too much like a justification."

Kitty shook her head vaguely, hands tightening around the neck of the water bottle she still hadn't found the courage to open. "I know, I know. I'm not questioning whether I picked the right side, or anything. It's just that sometimes, I wish I knew what we were fighting for."

She watched Kurt's two-toed feet flex in the warm sand next to hers. The forked tip of his tail kicked up a small trail of white grains before bending around his ankle. Kitty wondered if he found it tiring keeping his tail off the ground, since it was slightly too long not to drag when hanging straight. Or maybe, she thought, a tail liked to work that way, perpetually making and unmaking the serpentine curves divinity or genetics meant it to form.

"When I first joined you guys," she continued, "I wanted to fight for people. For everybody, all the people in the whole world who can't fight for themselves. But most of the time, it seems like we end up fighting for ourselves, against other mutants. Maybe we're the next step in evolution, or maybe… Maybe we're just a mistake."

"Katzchen. Look at me."

A gust of wind stirred the palm leaves as she raised her head. In the flickering light, Kurt's eyes alternated between rich gold and pale white. They were still reflectionless, yet his emotions were plain, carved into the pucker of his blue-black eyebrows and the subtle wrinkles bordering his serious frown.

His voice was deadly earnest as he said, "One person's mistake is another person's opportunity. We can't help how we were born, just as we can't always choose our enemies, or even our battles."

"So what _can_ we choose?"

All at once, his expression softened, fangs glinting, briefly, in a narrow ray of sunshine. "Well," he said, "our friends, for one."

Kitty forced a dry swallow, pursing her lips into a half-smile. "Yeah?"

"Pinky swear."

Kurt offered up the smaller of his two fingers, and Kitty, hesitating only slightly, wrapped her pinky finger around it, squeezing tightly. Seeing her tiny, pale finger engulfed by his large blue one, Kitty was assaulted by a sudden jolt of nervous energy that escaped as a snort of laughter. Kurt chuckled back as he released her, swiping the back of his hand across his damp brow before pushing his unruly hair away from his face, behind his pointed ears.

"Now…" he began, stepping away from the tree. "Perhaps we should rejoin the others. Ororo's started a campfire, and Logan's grilling rations on his claws. If you're lucky, you may even catch a glimpse of that rarest of spectacles—a Scott Summers' smile. And did I mention that colossal Russian you're so fond of also discarded his shirt some time ago…?"

Kitty frowned instinctively. "I'm not… _fond_ of him."

"Oh. So you dislike him, then."

"No, I just…" she ground her teeth as she trailed off, grumbling. "You're the worst, you know that?"

Kurt cocked his head, grinning lopsidedly. "Would you really have it any other way?"

Making a gracious half-bow, he extended his hand, palm up. "My lady… Your public awaits."

Kitty chewed her lip. "I'm sorry, I just... I'm not quite ready, yet."

Kurt straightened, eyeing her. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. But I'll get there. I promise."

"We'll be waiting."

"I know."

Kitty watched him retreat, heading back toward the crooked line of white smoke rising into the azure sky behind the Blackbird. Even walking in the sand, Kurt was an unsettling marvel of unconscious grace, aided, no doubt, by his singular feet. His tail was the crowning glory of his fluid, rolling gate, each slow curve sounding the rhythm of his supple limbs and lithe muscles. In all things, Kurt moved less like a human athlete and more like a cat on the prowl, some creature whose beauty was both easy and unaware, not sought but simply _there_, as a function of its being. Then he rounded the corner of the Blackbird, and was gone.

Kitty wrenched open the bottle of water, its label torn and dangling, and took a long, deep drink.


	2. The Boat

**The Boat**

*set in and around _Uncanny X-Men_ #360

"_...It was here, on this day, that the world first became aware of the existence Homo Sapiens Superior, or _mutants_, those humans born with extraordinary powers, when the terrorist we know only as 'Magneto' attempted to commander the base._

_ Though he was stopped by the outlaws called the X-Men, it was only the beginning of an escalating global crisis. _

_With that in mind, Newsminute America now takes on an in-depth examination of the mutant problem, and asks the hard question: 'How far is mankind prepared to go in order to control this threat?'"_

"Ach," Kurt grumbled to himself. "Why must they always call it a 'problem'..."

Deciding he'd heard enough, he loosened his tail from the lighting fixture, somersaulted to the floor, and switched off the TV. The irony was inescapable, that on the eve of his return to the X-Men after four years with Excalibur, the entire world seemed fixated on history's tendency to repeat itself in new guises. Seeing both Amanda and Cerise the night before at Meggan and Brian's wedding reception certainly hadn't helped matters, either; likewise for his lingering handover. Yet hadn't everything changed, for all of them? Hadn't he gone from a supporting player to a leader? Hadn't Peter gone from a friend to an enemy and back again? Hadn't Kitty gone from a young girl to a young woman? And hadn't acceptance of mutants gotten better, during all their long years of giving all they had for the sake of everyone, of sacrificing their bodies, abilities, and any semblance of a normal life to save the world from imploding and reality from disintegrating ten times over? Poor Rachel had sacrificed even more...

Maybe, after all, he was naive to believe change was possible. Or maybe he'd been blind, cut-off from reality at Brian's lighthouse, Moira's lab at Muir Island, and in a dozen other dimensions, allowing himself to forget the prejudice and fear that continued to smoulder in too many hearts, all around the world.

Whatever the case, Kurt knew brooding in his cabin couldn't possibly help anything. He needed company and some different scenery, even though securing either of those things also meant adopting a different appearance. He picked up his image inducer from the vanity and engaged the disguise he'd programmed into it as soon as he'd discovered the luxury cruise ship Titania would be escorting himself, Kitty, and Peter across the Atlantic. In the mirror, he watched his glowing golden eyes transform into the sky-blue irises of Leonardo DiCaprio, circa _Titanic_. The joke was for Kitty's benefit; it had been a favourite movie of hers when he first knew her, back when she first joined the X-Men. He wondered for a moment about his compulsion to remind Kitty of that long-ago past even as he complained inwardly about being reminded by others. But he dismissed the thought as irrelevant compared to the possibility of making Kitty smile; as always, making Kitty smile was the most important thing.

No one gave him a second glance as he made his way up to the deck. As usual, he was struck by how little attention he seemed to garner for his celebrity impressions versus his real self, never sure whether to be flattered or alarmed by that fact.

When he reached the deck, the midday sun was bright and warm, the pool bustling with couples and families. Still, his friends seemed to find a sliver of tranquility amid the chaos, slouched in sun-drenched lounge chairs at the furthest corner of the pool area. One of Peter's hands rested on his bare midsection and the other clutched a recent issue of _Art Monthly_ against the armrest. Kitty was wearing a hot pink bikini that showed off all her young, lean muscles and decidedly un-tanned skin; her face was hidden by enormous, plastic-framed Jackie-O sunglasses, and earbud headphones trailed from her ears to the ipod tucked under her right hand, lying limp at her side.

Kurt stopped at the foot of Kitty's chair, hesitating only slightly before tickling the sole of her dangling, bare foot with tip of his invisible tail. Kitty made a small, startled sound as she jerked awake, pushing herself quickly upright. A glance was all it took for her to recognize the false alarm. She yanked her headphones from her ears and frowned up at him.

"Ah," said Kurt, smiling graciously. "The lovely Rose awakens. Would you fancy a tour of the deck?"

Kitty inched her sunglasses down her nose to make the most of her unamused expression.

"Too much?" asked Kurt, raising a playful eyebrow back at her.

"At least it's a slightly more modern reference than you usually go for..."

Kurt offered a small bow as he extended his hand. "I've been saying it since 1999—the 21st century is overrated."

Kitty rolled her eyes as she pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head and let him help her to her feet.

She said, "I'm afraid it's only _you_ that makes me miss the age of chivalry."

"What—the 90s?"

Kitty pulled back, flashing him another warning look. "If this is what you're gonna be like, I can just as easily go back to the nap you so thoughtfully interrupted."

"I'll behave," Kurt assured her. "Scout's honour."

"Right..." Kitty mumbled, reaching down to collect her sheer, turquoise cover-up. As she did so, she leaned part of the way over Peter's chair. "You're okay here, Peter? Peter...?"

But Peter was also asleep behind his sunglasses, fingers sandwiched between the pages of his magazine.

Slipping her arms into her cover-up, Kitty went to Kurt's side and tossed a thumb backwards at Peter. "What hilarious thing should we write on his chest with sunscreen?"

"Let him sleep. It's been a long week."

"More like a long _month_," Kitty lamented, following Kurt through a gaggle of screeching children toward the portside railing.

"Scratch that," she amended. "It's been a long _year_. A long _many_ years. A long _forever_."

"I know what you mean," Kurt agreed. "Before I came up here, I was watching the news. Today is the anniversary of the first time Magneto attacked the X-Men. Which reminded me that it's _my_ anniversary next week, too."

"Anniversary...?"

"Of joining the X-Men," he explained. "It was seven years ago, next Thursday."

"How do you like that. Seven years, huh? That would make you—"

"I was nineteen."

They had reached the railing. Kitty spun around, leaning back against the metal rails as she tilted her head and placed a hand on her chin, appraising him critically through squinted eyes. After a moment, she dropped her hand, shaking her head dismissively.

"_Nah_..."

"What?" Kurt asked, leaning next to her.

"You were never a teenager," she said. "I bet you just skipped it, went straight from being an adorable fuzz-pile to a wise adult overnight."

Kurt gave a small chuckle. "Ja?"

"_Ja_," she imitated. "Well, how 'bout it, then? What were you like at nineteen?"

Kurt ran a hand through his hair as he turned toward the ocean. "I don't know... dumb, ambitious... handsome..."

"Of _course_."

"Not all washed up, like now."

"I don't know... I thought _The Aviator_ was pretty good..."

Kurt shot her a small grin. "Thanks. I won an Oscar for that, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but I kinda hate it when people win for biopics."

"Agreed. It's cheating."

"Totally."

They shared a brief smile that descended quickly into a not-quite-comfortable silence. Finally, Kitty sighed, dropping her gaze as she, too, turned toward the ocean.

Kurt eyed her. "Kitty...?"

"Sorry, I just..." she took another breath, shaking her head slowly. "You talk about it being seven years and yet we're still... I can't even stand here and look at my friend's real face. It just... it sucks."

Kurt blinked slowly, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the weather.

"Thanks," he said genuinely.

"For what?"

"For missing my face."

Kitty glanced at him, offering another small smile before her gaze flickered away. Kurt leaned forward over the railing and Kitty followed him, moving closer to rest her hand upon his forearm.

"Anytime, fuzzy."

They were silent for another long moment, listening to bird cries, the echo of far-away voices, and the gentle slosh of waves on the hull. The sun had slipped behind a cloud, lending a strange eternality to the seconds that ticked away.

"So..." Kitty began at last. "What's eating you?"

"I don't—"

"C'mon. You've been laying on the charm for days now. So you must be upset about something."

"I've just been thinking..."

"Uh huh. About what?"

"Going back... Working with our old friends again."

"About not being the boss anymore?"

"_Nein_. Honestly, that part is a relief."

"So then... Are you worried it won't be the same... or that it will be?"

"I don't know," Kurt replied honestly, studying patterns in the blue-grey waves. "Both, I suppose."

"Well, how do you think I feel? I was fourteen when they—we—left. I've been a member of Excalibur longer than I was an X-Man."

Kurt looked at her. "I never thought about it that way. Are you—"

"Happy, nervous, excited,_ terrified_..." Kitty shrugged. "You know. The gamut."

"You?" Kurt teased, nudging her shoulder with his. "Scared?"

"I might say the same to you."

"I never said I was scared," Kurt reminded her, lips curving up at one end.

Kitty met his playful expression with a faraway look. "But you are... aren't you?"

"With you by my side?" said Kurt, countering her seriousness with a wider smile. "Never."

Kitty snorted, and looked away, but not before Kurt saw her lips twitch, evidence of a stifled grin.

"Stupid..." she grumbled.

Their second silence was more companionable. Throughout, Kitty ran her fingers along his bare forearm, up to his elbow and then down again, fingernails cutting narrow, invisible trails through his fur. Kurt was used to people touching him. He had to be, since it had happened his entire life. As a child he'd loved it, as a teenager he'd hated it, and as an adult, he accepted it, because he understood, now, why it sometimes bothered him. It was because people, even friends, touched him in a way they wouldn't touch another person—a _normal_ person. Too often, people felt the need or the right to touch him not because of who he was, but because of what he looked like, as though his difference was public property, a marvel that needed confirming or claiming by both eyes and hands. Truthfully, he couldn't blame them; Kurt, of all people, knew how strange he was. At the very least, being petted was preferable to being run out of town.

Yet the added annoyance of it was that people rarely seemed to understand the physical effect touching had on him. Kurt knew his fur made him more sensitive, far more susceptible than most to even the smallest tokens of intimacy. Certainly, he was sure Meggan had never understood that fact. During the early days of Excalibur, entire months had been like intermittent torture, his head spinning from a thousand tiny gestures, from her hands fondling his, her thigh sliding up against his tail, or the way she'd seize him from behind to wish him good morning, good night, or welcome home, rubbing her cheek against the back of his neck, breath warm and moist in the fur behind his ear.

Kurt shivered, becoming acutely aware, in a way he hadn't been before, of the motion of Kitty's fingers. She was playing with the grain of his fur with her thumb, stirring it in tiny circles, pushing it one way and then smoothing it flat. It wasn't conscious; she was just enjoying the feel and texture of him while her mind wandered, to where Kurt could only guess. Normally, Kurt wouldn't let that kind of touch affect him. It was just his arm, and it was just Kitty. Yet something had been different, lately, in their relationship. _Kitty_ was different. Since the end of her romance with Pete Wisdom, she'd seemed quieter, more thoughtful... _older_...

For a long moment, Kurt stared at Kitty's fingers, marking their incongruous friction on his arm's visibly smooth, pink surface. Then he looked up, considering the profile of Kitty's face, open to the wind and waves. The sun chose that moment to reappear, flashing in her hazel eyes and igniting the auburn waves of her windblown hair; slipping out of her ponytail, her hair was like a fiery, shining mane grazing the rippling turquoise fabric barely covering her bare, pale neck shoulders. Kurt's first months knowing Kitty had also been torturous, but for a different reason. Sometimes, it had felt like every day and night was spent begging for her smile or touch; at that time, he would have done anything, offered her anything, if she promised not to retract her eyes each time he looked at her, her body shrinking, fighting the urge to phase. During those months, he'd never felt so helpless inside his skin, stripped naked each time she didn't look at him. Yet now, here they were. Here _she_ was, touching him without thinking, and missing the face she once feared.

Kurt swallowed. When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from somewhere deep inside his chest.

"Katzchen, I..."

Kitty looked at him, face contorting instantly into a sputter of laughter. "Sorry," she managed, shaking her head as she regained control. "I forgot you were... God, that's actually hilarious, your voice with that face."

Kurt slid his arm out of her grip.

"Ja, I had almost forgotten myself."

Kitty's smile fell as she caught something in his stranger's face.

"Kurt...? Are you..."

She never got a chance to finish, distracted by a tall, wide shadow falling over them.

"Ah," said Peter. "Here you are, Katya. And I see you've found an appropriate escort."

"Hello, Piotr," Kurt greeted, doing his best impression of a smile. "I apologize for stealing your date."

"With that face, it is understandable," said Peter, smiling back amicably. "I had assumed you had not gone far, though between the two of you, that is never a certainty."

"Shoot," Kitty interjected. "I gotta go back. Left my ipod under my chair. If you gentlemen would excuse me..."

Her hazel eyes flickered over Kurt one final time before she hurried away toward the pool. Peter and Kurt both watched her go, though Kurt noticed Peter's gaze linger a bit longer than necessary.

"Going back..." Peter began thoughtfully. "It has been so long. Sometimes I wonder, after so many years..."

Kurt's voice was flatter than he intended as he said, "Anything is possible."

"You really think so?" asked Peter, his own tone light with hope.

Kurt let the wind answer for him.


	3. In Space

**In Space**

*set during _Uncanny_ _X-Men_ #163

Space...

There had been a time when Kitty didn't know how perfectly that word described it, the entire universe beyond the tiny blue-and-white speck she called home. The first time she'd left Earth's atmosphere, Kitty had immediately known that nothing, no book, movie, or view through a telescope, could have prepared her for the vastness of it, for the reality of the all-engulfing blackness broken only by stars so bright and far they didn't even seem like stars anymore; they were more like holes than points of light, drawing your gaze into their depths until you lost yourself in a white emptiness as total as the blackness surrounding them.

Kitty craned her neck up and back toward another, more familiar set of lights in the dark. Kurt's eyes locked onto hers, grave, meaningful, and apologetic. Kitty flashed a brave half-smile, hoping she'd disguised the worry that was really for him. Maybe later, after it was all over, she'd let him know how worried she'd been—when they were safely back in Westchester, sharing the couch with a bowl of popcorn between them, mocking the inaccuracy of _Star Trek._

Kitty returned her gaze to the starfield that was growing larger in her vision as they approached the upper reaches of the Brood world's atmosphere. She was clutching Kurt's torso while Ororo gripped his hands, following the wind currents as far as she could into the cold, thin air. None of them were wearing spacesuits or oxygen masks; in fact, they were barely clothed, their borrowed costumes torn and ruined from the battle with Deathbird and the Brood that precipitated their current mission. Looking back, their plan to hijack Lilandra's ship from space would seem ludicrous, the insane brainchild of spandex-clad thrill-seekers too young and gifted to truly comprehend their own fragile mortality. For now, though, there was nothing to think about but the present and the immediate future, the current breath and the increasingly difficult next one.

Ignoring her own warning not to let her mind wander, Kitty remembered the first time she'd been in space. Then, too, she and Kurt had been thrown together, forced to spend two full days as hostages aboard a Shi'ar ship. The quarters had been luxurious, a suite of rooms fully stocked with image inducers, clothing replicators, and viewscreens, all the trinkets and gadgets a sci-fi and adventure stories-obsessed teenager could ever want. Kitty had played with all of them, though she'd been far more fascinated by Kurt. Those two days had revealed a side of him she'd only ever seen in glimpses. Gone was the carefree, joking scourge of Scott Summers' firm-handed leadership, replaced with a calm, collected man who took his role as her protector more seriously than she'd ever seen him take anything, then or since.

Normally, Kitty would have chafed at any suggestion she needed protecting. Yet the way Kurt had gone about it was so subtle, all she'd felt was comforted. More than that, she'd felt secure enough to draw on his comfort. When she'd thought Peter had been killed, she was grateful it was Kurt by her side; sinking into the strong shape and velvet soft feel of his arms, she hadn't been afraid to let her fear and doubt show, sure Kurt would never treat her any differently because of it. That experience had solidified things that, deep down, she'd already known: that Kurt, of all people, understood the life-saving power of friendship, and that asking for help could be a strength as much as a weakness.

In the present, Ororo was slowing, reaching the limits of her abilities. It would be up to Kurt to teleport himself and Kitty the final few miles, to the closest part of the docking ring housing Lilandra's ship. Because Kurt couldn't teleport inside a place he hadn't seen, and Kitty hadn't mastered the ability to phase passengers, Kurt would have to remain outside long enough for Kitty to phase into the docking ring and let him in through one of the airlocks. It was risky because they'd have to move very quickly; at most, Kurt would be able to survive one or two minutes in that near-vaccuum before he either froze to death or suffocated.

Ororo stopped. Her voice was distant and panting as she said, "This is as far as I can go. The rest is up to you."

"Take a deep breath, Katzchen," Kurt advised her, sounding similarly winded. "I apologize in advance for the rough ride."

Kitty nodded against his chest, gripping him tighter as Ororo released his arms, and he teleported.

A strangely faint popping sound proceeded a wrenching swoon, not unlike being kicked in the gut. Kitty swallowed back a violent, dry heave as she struggled to remember her own limbs, let alone her next move. A quick, blurry glance confirmed Kurt wasn't much better off; he was barely able to cling to the hull, one bare indigo hand slipping before he could find the strength or focus and grip. Kitty waited for his tiny nod of assent before relaxing her already rubbery body and slipping through the hull into the docking ring.

Once she was safely inside, Kitty solidified and collapsed against the deck. For fifteen seconds, she couldn't stand, the suddenly rich air wreaking havoc on her already spinning head. She had just managed to push herself halfway onto her numb feet when she heard it, a low rumble just arrhythmic enough to be organic. Then came the smell: the sharp iron of blood mixed with dull rot, blowing hot against her bare legs and back.

Kitty ducked sideways even as she turned, narrowly missing being impaled by the sharp, thrashing tentacles of the first Brood she'd ever seen. It's curved, scaly body towered over her, chortling its own insect language through a mouth that was all teeth, three rows and razor sharp. All the bone-chilling stories Kitty had heard were nothing compared to the terror of confronting such a being in the flesh. It was beyond nightmarish, each swift, fluid motion of its four prehensile tentacles realer and more awful than anything she'd ever imagined. Even worse was the glint of deadly sentience in its truly inhuman eyes, boring directly into her.

It was all she could do to stay ahead of it as she dove, half-running, half-crawling, down the corridor through the closest doorway, into the central control room. She mashed the door closed, but was too slow; the Brood shot a writhing tentacle into the room, keeping the sliding panels from closing. Still, its struggle with the door bought Kitty a moment to think. She glanced at the alien consoles she knew well from a previous mind-link with Professor X. She knew the airlocks operated on a common design, and that the outer door wouldn't open until the inner one was sealed, and vice versa. Unfortunately, while she did need access to these central controls to unlock the outer doors, each individual door also needed to be opened manually at the source. Damningly, the airlock where Kurt would be waiting was at the opposite end of the corridor, between herself and the Brood.

Pressed into the furthest corner of the tiny space, Kitty ticked off her options. Perhaps she could lure the Brood toward her and escape, locking it inside the control room; then she could rescue Kurt and they could tackle it together. Yet she'd seen the Brood's speed, and doubted she'd be able to outmaneuver it. Fighting it on her own was out of the question; she'd need more time, and she didn't have it. Kurt was still out there, and she was running out of time...

With a loud clang and a rumble of broken gears, the Brood's tentacles wrenched open the door. It burst into the room, chattering and hissing. There were only two words Kitty understood.

"...huummmansss... die..."

Kitty phased and the Brood's tentacles passed through her, rending a frightening dent in the wall behind her back. It paused, then, clearly surprised by her ability. In that split-second Kitty realized: there was another airlock right behind her, and she'd already unlocked it. All she'd have to do is solidify, press the button three inches above her right hand, and hold on tight while the explosive decompression sucked the Brood out into space. Kitty doubted anything, Brood or otherwise, could survive such an experience.

The same moment the plan occurred to her, Kitty recoiled at the implications. The Brood was horrible and murderous but it was still a sentient creature; killing it, even to protect herself, went against everything she believed in. Yet, hot on the heels of that revulsion came a picture of Kurt's grave face framed by the cold infinity of the starfield, golden eyes dimming to rejoin the blackness as his hand slipped on the icy metal hull. And with that picture came another conviction, shocking in its certainly: _I'll die if Kurt dies_.

"Stop!" Kitty ordered the Brood. "Stop right there. You go back the way you came, or we're _both_ dead."

The Brood's tentacles wavered, eyes darting as it considered her words, or perhaps merely struggled to understand her. Then it stretched wide its three rows of teeth and lunged wildly, tentacles thrashing in a flurry of desperate aggression. Kitty closed her eyes but had the good sense to re-solidify and grip the railing when she heard a high pitched beeping noise. Her eyes remained closed for what happened next: the deafening thunderclap and painful rush of air, followed by a truncated, inhuman scream.

The airlock cycled shut automatically, and the air quickly re-pressurized. When Kitty opened her eyes, the Brood was gone—dead, though not by her hand. It must have opened the door by accident in its mad rush.

But there was no time to think about it. No time to breathe or mourn or recover her strength.

_I'll die if he dies..._

Kitty ran back down the corridor to the opposite airlock, stumbling, falling once, not caring so long as she kept moving forward. Blood was trickling down her leg by the time she reached the entrance and slammed the open button with a furious, closed fist. She had to wait several agonizing seconds for the outer section to open and close before the inner door would open. When it did, panels inching apart with excruciating slowness, Kitty was struck by nearly simultaneous waves of relief and panic: because there was Kurt, lying face-down on the deck, not collapsed so much as crumpled, far too awkward, and far too still.

She threw herself on his body, flipping him over and hooking her arms under his to drag him into the main corridor, where the air was thicker and warmer. Moving him was harder than it should have been; his stiffness made him seem heavier, nothing bending like it should. There was ice crusted in the exposed fur on his arms and chest, and she couldn't find a pulse.

_ I'll die if he dies..._

Kitty's own heart was beating frantically by the time she managed to haul him into the corridor, heaving with exertion and a steadily rising panic she hadn't allowed herself to feel in the presence of the Brood. She dropped Kurt's arms and swung herself around, straddling his body and gripping his hair in her hands as she shook him once, violently.

"Kurt...!"

Then she seized fragments of his clothing and his chest, fingernails scratching and pleading into his unresponsive flesh.

"...wake up!... dammit, wake..."

_This isn't helping!_ Her brain screamed. _Remember your training!_

She forced herself to take a deep breath. Then she squeezed Kurt's nose shut, locked her warm lips against his cold ones, and evacuated her breath into his lungs. She proceeded with a mechanical rhythm as she released his lips, pumped his chest, and then returned to his lips.

On the third repetition, he coughed dry spit onto the roof of her mouth. Kitty pulled back as Kurt coughed again and groaned, eyelids flickering, opening enough to expose a thin white strip of his dimly glowing eyes. Kitty began trembling madly a moment before she collapsed against Kurt's chest, sobbing freely into his cold, damp, naked fur.

"...Kurt..." she managed to gasp. "Oh... oh god... oh thank..."

Kurt made another pained sound, and she realized all at once she was the worst place she could possibly be, her whole weight pressed against his lungs. She peeled herself off his body, her cut knee staining the deck with blood as she crawled away. Eerily calm in the immediate wake of her outburst, she watched, still and dispassionate, as Kurt rolled clumsily onto his stomach, retching up thick, red-streaked mucus.

Finally, he turned over again, groaning as he ran a heavy hand over his face and chest.

"Katzchen..?" he said, voice tiny and strained in the cavernous silence.

"Yes, Kurt."

"Let's not try that again."

Kitty rubbed an unsteady hand under her wet nose. "You mean... the hanging out in the upper atmosphere without a spacesuit... or the mouth-to-mouth?"

Kurt's head lolled her way and he smiled—barely, but it was there. Kitty nearly lost herself again at the sight, gagging on a delirious, sputtering laugh. Kurt's laugh was even worse—dry, painful and ragged, more like a struggle to cough or breathe than an expression of mirth. Their pathetic noises made overlapping echoes against the curved metal walls.

The sound was still reverberating when Kurt made a move to get to his feet. Kitty hurried to his side to help him, sighing contentedly against the feel of his slow but steady heartbeat against her body when she wedged her shoulder under his.

As they made their way down the corridor, toward Lilandra's ship, Kurt said, "So... You do know how to fly a spaceship, right?"

Kitty stopped and stared at him, her red-rimmed eyes widening.

"Ach, not to worry," Kurt said lightly, squeezing her shoulder and pulling her forward. "How hard can it be?"

Finally realizing the joke, but too exhausted to try a second laugh, Kitty closed her eyes against his chest and let him lead her, wondering how she'd gone so quickly from supporting him to being under his wing. She didn't need protecting; but she also didn't mind taking turns being strong.

Gradually, they both recovered themselves, hijacking the ship and rescuing their friends before defeating the Brood and returning home to Westchester, planet Earth, and what passed for a normal life.

In all the years that followed, Kitty never told Kurt about her experience with the Brood in the control room. As time went by, she convinced herself the reason she never told him was that it didn't matter: the whole thing had been an accident, and quickly became ancient history. It was only in the first days and weeks after they returned home, when she could still clearly recall the physical sensation of Kurt's cold, lifeless lips against her own, that she came close to admitting the real reason she didn't tell him: that she would have killed to save him, and was worried he'd never forgive her.


	4. Mink

_**Note:**_ This chapter assumes that shortly before Kitty got lost in the big space bullet in Joss Whedon's _Astonishing X-Men_, she and Kurt had a physical relationship; it was brief, intense, and didn't end great on either side. That's all the context you really need for this chapter. If you want the full story of how I imagine the relationship going down, check out my other Kitty/Kurt stories (especially _Whole into Parts_).

***this is set soon after the X-Men's move to San Francisco, in _Uncanny X-Men_ #500**

* * *

Kurt was cold. But then, it seemed like he was always cold here, on the island of Utopia. He knew it was irrational; San Francisco was the most temperate climate he'd ever lived in. Yet knowing the cold was all in his head did little to persuade his head or body otherwise; all it really did was convince him a sweater would be useless. So instead he let himself shiver in his thin cotton t-shirt, curled inside the wide steel border of the window frame, watching the rain pour and dribble down the dark panes of glass. A dark, ghostly shadow of his face stared back at him until he vanished it by pressing his forehead against the window, comforted, however momentarily, that the glass felt cooler than his skin.

It had been three months since they lost Kitty. No one knew for sure if she was dead, but they did know she was lost—to them, and maybe to herself. For those same three months, Kurt had been more than usually busy navigating an unending series of crises and near-death experiences at the now-destroyed Mansion, on snowy mountaintops, and in Russian torture chambers. It had been hell, though in retrospect, he appreciated the distraction. Truly, anything seemed preferable to where he now found himself: healthy, safe, and alone. In the comparative calm following the X-Men's move to the West Coast, Kurt had had too much time to think, and when he thought, he thought about Kitty—clinging to the desperate hope she might somehow find her way back, and tortured by the ridiculous, ironic fear that after traversing the infinite vacuum of space, she might arrive on the tiny spec that was Earth and not know where in the world to find him.

Kurt wasn't sure how many minutes or hours had gone by since he abandoned his book to watch and then listen to the rain, its hard, steady rhythm broken only by the occasional clap or rumble of thunder.

It was at the end of one such rumble that he heard a faraway voice speak his name.

"Kurt."

When he opened his eyes, everything was different. He was standing, and the rain was sparse within an expansive, blue-grey sky. Kurt absorbed the change calmly until he turned toward the voice calling him, at which point his heart stopped. Because there she was. Kitty Pryde.

Even greater than the shock of seeing her was his wonder at how much smaller she looked. At first, he was sure it was a trick of perspective. But as she stepped into the hazy circle of light, and he was able to make out the fuzzy slippers, black leggings and oversized pink sweatshirt below her creaseless, wide-eyed face, he realized she was smaller because she was younger.

As she shuffled forward, she tightened her auburn hair inside its high, messy bun before wrapping her arms tightly around her narrow upper body.

Stopping at his side, she said, "You hate Canadian beer."

Kurt looked down at his hand and saw he was holding a bottle of Molson.

"Ja."

"You really miss him, don't you?"

Kurt blinked, remembering where he was. It was seven years ago, one week after the formation of Excalibur, a month since he'd woken from a coma and the X-Men had been lost, presumed dead. He was standing on the observation deck of Brian Braddock's lighthouse, on Britain's Atlantic coast.

Slipping into the routine of memory, he replied, "Logan hated Canadian beer, too."

"Why did he drink it, then?"

"He only drank it sometimes. Remembering, maybe. Or maybe just trying to."

Kitty's eyes swept the grey sky.

After a moment, she said, "He wouldn't want you to do this, you know."

"Do what?"

"Blame yourself."

"That's... I know that. And I'm not."

She looked at him, wide eyes damp and serious.

"It's not your fault."

Kurt swallowed. "I never thought it was."

"Really? 'Cause I have. Thought it was my fault, I mean."

"And do you believe it?"

"No. But sometimes, it doesn't really matter."

Kurt's jaw clenched as he struggled to maintain his gaze, and failed.

He was staring at his unwanted beer when she asked, "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"When we were both... hurt... and they decided to move us to Muir Island, I was almost glad. It sucked being around the all healthy people when I couldn't talk, couldn't touch anything. But when you were in your coma, I used to talk to you, anyway. Maybe 'cause we were both sort of ghosts, it made it easier. Made me want to keep trying, for when you woke up."

Kurt raised his eyes. Now, as then, he could sense the gulf of things she wasn't telling him. More disturbing, though, was the realization that, despite everything they'd been through together in all the intervening years, he still found himself mostly ignorant about the contents of that gulf.

"How did you know I _would_ wake up?" he asked.

Kitty offered a small smile. "Because you're you. And you've been through worse. We both have."

"Then... or since?"

It was a rhetorical question. In the wake of it, they were both silent for a long moment. The rain had stopped, but the sky still flashed and rumbled around them.

Finally, Kitty asked, "Do you miss teleporting?"

"It's not so bad," he said, then amended, with a small shrug, "I try not to think about it, I suppose."

Relieving his words, Kurt was heartsick at his insincerity. The way Kitty dropped her eyes in defeat forced him to confront just how much he'd also kept from her, and that she, too, had always known it. Truthfully, losing his ability to teleport felt like a vital piece had been ripped whole from his body, or even his soul. Without his gift, nothing was right, in himself or his relation to the world around him. Everything seemed variously smaller and larger; rooms felt claustrophobic, and open spaces felt daunting. All of which left him in a semi-constant state of anxiety, unnerved at least as much by the solidity of walls as the expansiveness of the ocean or sky.

"I _wish_ I could do that," Kitty lamented, studying her slippers. "But if I stop thinking about staying solid, I start phasing through the floor."

Kurt considered a thousand impossible responses before saying the most inadequate thing of all. "I'm sorry."

Kitty returned his shrug. "It's more annoying, than anything."

Kurt wondered if her response might have been different if he'd had the faith or courage to unburden himself before her. Yet even now, studying her sad eyes and unlined face, hovering on the cusp of a too-early adulthood, he doubted he'd do things differently, even if he could. He'd always been willing to hurt her to protect her.

"Can I tell _you_ something?" he asked.

"Dunno. Is it mushy?"

His lips trembled with all the things he wished he could say, but couldn't—because of the script, and because he didn't know how to say them.

"Just... thank you," he said.

"What'd I do now?"

"The usual."

Once again, Kurt hated his words. He hated to suggest there was anything usual about her, here, now, or ever. He wanted to throw his arms around her in apology, to use his body to make up for the inadequacy of speech. But of course he couldn't—not here, and not now. Maybe never again.

Kitty picked that moment to curl her too-solid fingers over his shoulder, squeezing gently. Kurt stiffened reflexively. For one, short moment, her touch was warm, and far-too welcome. A nauseous guilt rushed over him at the thoughts and memories that sprang unbidden to his mind, a whirlwind of images and sensations of her hands and body, of heat, warmth, and friction, the slap of flesh and Kitty's half-lidded eyes clouded with pleasure above her stiffly quivering lips.

His staggering heart had time to beat twice before his body descended back into the cold, his mind banishing, in the same moment, all the memories and desires associated with the woman he knew Kitty would become. He tried to convince himself it didn't matter, that the luxury of her presence was enough. But of course it wasn't, not after all the things they'd shared. Being with her now, like this, having her so close and yet so impossibly, untouchably far, wasn't a comfort—it was a haunting.

"Come inside," she urged, dropping her hand from his shoulder. "It's still early. We can watch a movie or something."

"I will. Give me a few minutes to finish this beer, and I'll be right behind you."

"Okay. I'll get some popcorn started."

She turned, and made her way back toward the door.

Before the threshold, she paused. "Just... don't be long, okay?"

"I won't."

Kurt heard the heavy door open and close, and knew he was alone. Again.

He set down—practically dropped—his beer on the ground and pushed his hands though his hair before leaning over the railing, closing his eyes as he sunk his head between his arms. While he concentrated on the rhythm of his breathing, it started raining again. The first large, spare drops sounded like pebbles hitting the ocean, but diffused quickly into a rustling hum.

Kurt didn't know how long he lost himself in that white noise before he felt a faint tickle against his bare forearm. Opening his eyes, he realized he was no longer standing on the lighthouse platform. He was back in a window ledge, though it wasn't Utopia; by the oak frame, Kurt could tell it was the Mansion.

He turned his head, and saw her again. Kitty. The same, but once again different. The face looking down into his was familiar, older, and of course beautiful—more beautiful than photos or memories could ever hope to capture. She was aglow with mirth, eyes glittering, cheeks flushed pink on either side of her coy smile. All at once, Kurt knew exactly when and where he was: it was six months ago, the night of his 30th birthday.

"Well?" Kitty prompted, backing up and striking a pose. "Do you like it?"

Kurt realized and remembered she was wearing a golden brown mink coat, double-breasted with rhinestone buttons, sparkling dully in the low light. It hit at the very top of her pale, bare thigh, the dusty pink lace of her underwear just visible when she performed a graceful pirouette. The collar was flipped up and her loose, auburn hair wove itself into the shiny, thick fur caressing her neck and chin.

"What's the matter?" she teased, pausing mid-turn to look back over her shoulder. "Jealous?"

Against his will, Kurt returned her smile, asking a question to which he already knew the answer. "And where, pray tell, did you acquire this miraculous pelt?"

"It was my grandmother's," Kitty explained. "I found it when we were going through boxes. I hadn't touched any of that stuff since..." she faltered for a moment, but forced back the memory.

"Anyway," she continued lightly, stepping toward him. "You never told me what you think."

She held out her hand, fingers half-buried by her long, wide sleeve. Compelled by forces beyond his control, Kurt placed his hand in hers and rose to his numb feet. Kitty kept a subtle distance as her hands crawled up his arms to his shoulders, caressing his cheek and ear with fur before she slipped her hands around his neck, and kissed him.

The moment their lips met, it all came flooding back, a lifetime of warmth transfused into his hands and body by her touch, with its beautiful weight of love and years. Panic warred with a long-lost calm in the unsteady sigh Kurt released into her mouth. By the time they parted, his emotions had begun to fuse into a mounting anticipation, held in check only by reverence, by the necessity of touching, seeing, feeling everything, every sacred moment.

Circling her ear with his thumb, he lost himself in her hazel gaze, devotedly reflecting his own golden orbs. His other hand made a slow journey down the buttoned front of her coat, fingers sinking into thick seams and waves of fur, searching, vaguely, for the distant curves of her body, made mysterious under the heavy folds. When he reached the bottom edge he slipped his hand inside, travelling up her thigh to the curve of her quivering hip, his fingers tracing the lacy band of her underwear, snug against her taught muscles. The hand touching her face descended into a deep, yielding tangle of hair and fur, searching out and finding the quick, strong beat of her pulse.

Kurt was sure he'd never meant anything more when he said, "Beautiful."

Kitty blinked, and dropped her gaze, suddenly bashful. "I just thought I'd turn the tables a bit, you know?"

"If only you had a tail..."

"Nobody's perfect."

"I wouldn't say that," he said, voice husky against her lips.

As he spoke, his hand left her hip and travelled back up her body, undoing the rhinestone buttons one at a time.

"You may be right," Kitty breathed.

Her own hands were also wandering up, under his t-shirt, and he stepped back enough to let her slip it over his head. She pushed his hair off his forehead, behind his ears, then made her way down again. Kurt watched her watching her own hands as she stroked his chest and shoulders, making circles against the grain of his fur and then smoothing it flat. When she tweaked one of his hard nipples with her thumb, he closed his eyes, tail lashing against his own leg as a low rumble rose in his throat.

He felt for the last button on her coat and released it, pressing his own naked fur against the delicious skin of her bare stomach and breasts, embraced also by the scratchy-soft, almost ticklish texture of the mink and its heavy-smooth satin lining, the fabric made warm by her body. His skin twitched and shivered, fur bristling, trying and failing to process too many conflicting needs, soothed and driven mad by the liquid motion of skin and satin, and the rougher friction of fur against fur. The only cure was to have her on top of him, to feel his animal nature confirmed and chastened by her own as she called out and possessed his name and self in a fit of ecstasy.

Kitty's hips twisted against his, her lips brushing his neck, teasing again, before she pulled back to look at him. Kurt opened his hungry eyes into hers.

"Happy birthday," she said.

Kurt swallowed, his racing heartbeat arrested in a sudden lurch. As quickly as it had rushed in, the blood began to drain from his face. He struggled to meet her gaze, and became distracted by details, by the way the dark eyeliner on Kitty's upper lids was smudged by tiredness or carelessness into a tiny grey tear at the corner of her right eye. Seeing that, the perfection of her imperfection, he knew it wasn't right. It wasn't right because it was _too_ right. Because it had happened before...

Fighting a growing loss of sensation, he squeezed his eyes shut and kissed her grey tear. Then he kissed the crest of her forehead and her jaw line under her ear, rubbing his cheek against hers before burying his face in a sea of fur and hair, seizing the same in his tightening, desperate hands.

"Oh Katzchen... Katzchen..."

Sensing the change in his broken voice and tight fists, Kitty pulled away again. Kurt released her easily, condemned by the growing sureness that he'd never really had her to begin with.

"Hey..." she said, brows puckered with concern. "Are you okay? You seem..."

"I'm... " Kurt bit his cheek with his fang, surrendering once more to a past he couldn't change. "I'm fine. Just a bit... distracted."

"I know," she sympathized, running a slow hand over his heart. "Don't worry about it. You want to just chill for a while? We can always pick this up later. After all, we have all night."

Kurt uttered the only response he could give. "Don't forget the next night..."

"...and the one after that," Kitty finished, grinning mischievously. She gave the fur on his chest one final, playful swirl before stepping out of his arms.

Kurt watched her slip away like grains of sand through his fingers, staring helplessly at his own empty hands. Then he looked past himself to Kitty, watching her duck out of her heavy pelt and toss it on the bed. His eyes were like lenses, studying her nearly naked form through the strangely intimate distance of a home movie as she zipped herself into a hooded sweatshirt and pulled a pair of grey track pants over the chipped teal nail polish adorning her perfect, round toes.

She said, "I'll go make us some hot chocolate, and we can watch a movie. You pick—as long as it's something from this century."

"Sure."

"'Kay. Back in a jiffy."

Her leaving was an anticlimax, his mind and body once more beyond emotion or sensation. As she opened the door, passed through it, and closed it behind her without so much as a backward glance, all he knew was a terrible, protective numbness.

Mechanically, Kurt returned to the window, and sat down, bringing his knees up to his chest, tail looping around his ankle. Lightning flashed against his closed eyelids as he leaned his face against the glass, hearing the pouring water, and wishing he could feel it.

At first, he thought the sound of a determined fist hammering on his door was simply more thunder. Reality dawned gradually, struggling through a heavy veil.

Kurt rubbed his face as he stood, and went to the door. Opening it revealed Logan, scowling and carrying a six pack of beer.

"'Bout time," he growled. "Were you asleep or something?"

"I... guess so," Kurt faltered.

"Anyway, you ready? Found a new spot, south-east corner of the island where the wind dulls the stench of metal, makes the place half-tolerable."

"Has it stopped raining?"

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Raining? It hasn't rained in days. Exactly how long have you been asleep?"

Kurt looked away, confused, and unnerved.

"Hey, elf..." Logan began, gravelly voice softened with concern. "I was just kidding about—Are you okay?"

"I don't know..."

"Talk or don't. But both go great with beer."

Kurt managed a small, grateful smile as he eyed the beer in Logan's hand. "What did you—"

"German. The good stuff. Were you expecting Canadian?"

"Of course not."

"Good. Then let's go."

As he followed Logan through the door, Kurt reflected that he was glad it wasn't raining. If it was clear enough, and dark enough, maybe he'd be able to see the stars.

* * *

Next (sometime in December): Kitty versus Kurt Darkholme...


	5. Darkholme

*This is set after _Second Coming_ (ie. after Kurt's death) and in the immediate aftermath of Kitty meeting Kurt Darkholme (Nightcrawler from the Age of Apocalypse reality) in _Uncanny X-Force_ #19.

This chapter also owes an extra-special thank you to Sundowhn, whose insight into Darkholme is second to none—which is inexplicable only because Sundowhn is ever so very much nicer than Darkholme is ;)

* * *

It had been like losing him all over again.

The moment he'd walked into the room, through the searing white light of a dimensional portal into the hangar at Cavern X, her brain had lit up like fireworks. She hadn't cared if she was hallucinating or insane; accounting for the impossible could wait because there he was—Kurt.

When she'd raced across the room to throw her arms around him, feeling for two glorious seconds the familiar contours of his warm body, her tears had finally welled up, all the tears she'd stored away over all the long, lonely months she'd forced herself not to feel, swearing on everything she held dear that she'd never, ever, let him go again.

It was in the very midst of that promise that he'd pushed her away—violently, brutally, treating the depth of her love as an infecting plague.

She'd staggered and then run away, into the closest private room she could find. It was the hangar's control room, a smallish, round space surrounded by screens and consoles. Now, alone inside the room, she was trembling with the effort it took to remain solid, fighting a desperate impulse to vanish as she leaned low over the back of a metal chair, forehead brushing her fingertips. Different coloured lights blinked rhythmically against her closed eyelids, accompanied by a gentle mechanical hum.

It wasn't the first time she'd met other Kurts. Encountering his counterpart from the alternate reality in which the Nazis had conquered Europe had been particularly unsettling; that Kurt had been less like a dark mirror than a distillation of evil, a man whose only amusement came from violence and hate. The Kurt she'd encountered in Limbo as a servant of Belasco also came to mind. Yet those encounters had been endurable because she'd had the real Kurt—her Kurt—by her side; it was easy to dismiss a copy with the original in reach.

Now, though, things had changed, as her latest reaction proved. The Bamfs that had taken over the Jean Grey School were bad enough, but this… This was different, not least of all because she knew, not very deep down, that she wanted it to be.

Kitty was wrenched back to the present by the hydraulic moan of the sliding door, signalling she was no longer alone.

"Fräulein."

Kitty couldn't control her visceral reaction to the sound of his voice—Kurt's voice. Unique, perfect, and tactile, she felt it vibrate through the air, in concert with the shiver that began under her hair and proceeded through her chest to the tips of her toes and fingers. She hadn't expected to see him again, now or maybe ever, any more than she'd expected to see him the first time. But now he was here, and she couldn't very well ignore him, just as she couldn't ignore the way his gaze on her back illuminated all the regret and embarrassment she felt about her previous behaviour. She wasn't quite ready to contemplate why she was suddenly so concerned about the opinion of a stranger.

She swiped a quick hand over her eyes and pushed herself upright, squaring her shoulders as she turned to greet him. The sight of him was both better and worse: better because she was faced to confront his obvious physical differences, his deep red eyes and the brighter red lightning bolt adorning the left side of his face; worse because those differences were minor compared to his more-obvious similarities.

It had been nearly a year since Kurt had died, and longer than that since Kitty had been separated from him, both literally and practically, physically and emotionally. Yet in all that time, she'd never stopped being able to see Kurt in her mind's eye. She'd never lost the ability to conjure what she'd thought was a perfect vision of his face, eyes, or smile; a blink of her eyes or a beat of her heart was all it took to picture the beloved intricacies of his body, in either the bliss of sleep or the glory of movement. But here, now, watching the white-booted, two-toed feet of Kurt's latest doppelganger roll over the floor, his fork-tipped tail making a low, loose curve behind his knees, she was brought face-to-face with how much she'd actually forgotten, less in fact than in feel; it wasn't just his too-familiar voice that seemed to charge the air around her.

"Hi there," she said, managing a shaky, close-lipped smile.

He met her conciliatory gesture with a thoroughly blank expression as he entered the room and let the door slide shut behind him.

His tone was equally blank as he told her, "You should consider yourself fortunate. To walk away after touching me without permission."

Kitty clenched her jaw, debating how to read his deadpan face and voice, unable to distinguish between hyperbole and truth and wondering, vaguely, if such confusion wasn't actually intentional.

"So I guess you're not here to apologize," she offered.

Watching her own deadpan counter fall dramatically flat, Kitty cleared her throat, and started again.

"Well anyway, _I'm_ sorry. Obviously, you're not the man I thought you were."

"Obviously."

"So who _are_ you?"

"My name is Kurt Darkholme."

"Darkholme...?" Kitty's eyes widened despite herself. "As in..."

"It's my family name."

"Right..." she said, taking a deep breath and releasing it. "Well, I'm Kitty—Kitty Pryde. It's, uh, short for Katherine."

"Wouldn't 'Kate' be more efficient?"

Kitty opted to change the subject. "So where do you come from?"

"You wouldn't know it."

"You'd be surprised. Is it anything like here?"

"That remains to be seen."

"That bad, huh?"

Darkholme didn't answer. He was moving as they talked, making his way slowly along the curved border of the room, intently and indiscriminately examining both consoles and blank patches of wall. Watching him, Kitty couldn't be sure whether his actions were a strategy or a disguise, whether he was really studying the features and contours of the room or whether he merely wanted her to _think_ he was. Why would he seek her out only to ignore her...?

Yet her distrust was at war with a sick fascination as she continued to compare differences and similarities. Darkholme shared Kurt's grace and athleticism yet lacked his harmony; he had the same compact muscles but was _all_ muscle, giving his spandex-clad frame a sharper, stiffer expression that emphasized the tiny hitches in his otherwise fluid movements. At first, Kitty thought it was an effect of caution or his uniform's armoured joints, but a better look at the lines around his eyes suggested otherwise, as did the fluorescent light glinting in the subtle streaks of grey at the temples of the unruly mess of blue-black hair that was still every bit as beautiful as Kurt's. Kurt had been 30 when he died, but Kitty felt quite sure Darkholme was older, perhaps closer to 40. Either that, or life had taken an undue toll.

"Are you an X-Man, in your world?"

"Ja."

"So you're a hero."

"I bring the guilty to justice."

Kitty snorted, having learned from the best to defend herself with humour. "Okay, Batman."

Darkholme stopped long enough to shoot her a quizzical look. "What?"

"Batman... You know... from comic books, movies, lunch boxes, t-shirts, Legos..."

"You admire this man?"

"No, I..." Kitty trailed off, unsettled by his stark incomprehension. "Never mind. It's not important."

Darkholme resumed his inspection, and Kitty returned to studying the corrugated metal floor. All at once, she wished she was in uniform, hating her Pumas and jeans and pining for her tall leather combat boots and unstable molecule spandex—anything to level the footing that, despite her best efforts, seemed to be eroding under her.

After a moment, she asked, "Do you know me where you're from?"

"We've never met."

She nodded slowly, neither glad nor disappointed, still oblivious to his purpose.

"Though you clearly knew me," observed Darkholme.

"We were... friends. But you're—he's—dead."

"So I've heard. Which begs the question: do you usually expect dead friends to come waltzing through the door?"

"Not exactly," she admitted, crossing her arms over her chest. "But I never stop hoping. If your X-Men are anything like mine... maybe you understand that."

He glanced at her and cocked an eyebrow, widening one of his ruby red eyes. "Don't you think you're a bit _old_ to believe in miracles?"

Kitty nearly shivered again at the coldness of his tone, which was too angry to be bitter and too despondent to be angry. She shifted her weight and tightened her arms and clothes around her body, beginning to regret her earlier flippancy.

Suddenly, Darkholme halted, giving her what seemed like his full attention for the first time. "May I ask _you_ a question?"

Reluctantly, Kitty raised her head and her eyes. "Sure."

"What was he like, this friend of yours? My counterpart in this world?"

Kitty paused for a long, numb moment.

"He was the kind of guy people miss," she said at last.

"People like you."

"Yeah."

"How did he die?"

"He... It was a teleporting accident."

"Hm. How ironic," he said flatly, attention wandering away to a blinking screen.

"I guess."

She dropped her eyes.

"Was he married?"

Kitty hesitated, taken aback by his sudden turn. She looked up enough to observe Darkholme maintain a disinterested air that may or may not have been studied.

"No," she replied. "No, he was never married."

"What do you miss about him?"

"What?"

Darkholme's gaze rolled over her as he began walking again, this time in her direction, advancing at a deliberately careless angle.

"Every loss is different," he said, each slow, sideways step closing the distance between them. "In my life, I've lost many people. Some of them fade, faces disappearing from the mind's eye so quickly, reality becomes tangled with dream. Men and women I lived and fought with, sharing beds and food as the world crumbled around us… Some of them are gone as surely from my memory as from the earthly plain itself. Yet there are others that linger. Sometimes a nameless child will haunt the darkness, known only for a moment in life as a crying face bordered by flames. But most persistent are the voices, the ones that don't wait for night but will settle for a shadow in the day, whispering, just out of reach, loud enough to hear, but too quiet to understand."

He reached her side but stepped past, curling behind her. Kitty remained perfectly still, wary of his closeness and distrustful of her own ability to move or speak.

"Tell me..." he asked, familiar voice rumbling behind her ear. "Do I sound like your friend?"

He drew closer, close enough that Kitty could feel the heat from his body, rising and falling with the motion of his chest, inches and less from her back. His breath was warm behind her ear; it was the same spot Kurt liked to kiss, lips and fur tickling her neck under her hair.

"And is it just a voice that you miss…?"

He was whispering at that point, whispering against her ear and her neck as he laid his gloved, two-fingered hand on her shoulder. Kitty inhaled sharply, a jolt racing up her too-solid spine. She sunk her fingernails into her arm and the palm of her hand as his fingers—Kurt's fingers—squeezed her bones and flesh.

"Maybe…" he continued. "You also miss a touch… A heartbeat, beating against yours through the night. Maybe what you really miss is what no other body can give you…"

The moment the tip of his tail brushed her calf, her fingernails broke the skin of her palm and she whirled toward him. Darkholme caught her punch easily, several inches from his face.

Kitty stared at her fist inside Darkholme's. "You expected me to do that. Didn't you?"

Darkholme uttered a tiny, dry chuckle. "I gave it a 50/50 chance."

Moving from anger to disgust, Kitty phased. Darkholme's unsuspecting fist dropped clumsily though her body as she stepped through him, toward the door.

"You're not the only one who doesn't like being touched without permission," she said, stopping several feet from the exit.

"Fair enough," he conceded, following her with his gaze. "But thank you, anyway."

"For what?"

"For the information."

Kitty's fist clenched tighter for the steadying pain.

"How long do you plan on staying here?" she asked crisply.

"Until my work is done."

"What 'work?'"

"There are people from my world in yours. People who need to be brought to—"

"Justice. Right, I get it. What kind of justice?"

"The same kind your friend Wolverine extols."

Kitty had no answer to that, and hated herself for it.

"And in the meantime, you're working with X-Force?"

"So it would seem."

"And when you're done, you go back, is that it?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether I'm still alive."

Kitty felt a trickle of blood between her knuckles as she loosened her fist and forced herself to look at him. Darkholme stared back impassively—not curious or even defiant. Gone was the energetic sparkle of Kurt's golden eyes. Instead there was only the dull, monotonous glow of Darkholme's deep red gaze, depthless not because it penetrated but because it refused entry; Darkholme's eyes didn't reach out so much as keep out.

No fur grew within the broad, red lightning-stripe running down the left side of his face, and its colour worked its way into all the tiny creases around his eye; naked, vibrant, and total, it reminded her more of a burn or stain than a tattoo. Then there was his face itself, flesh pulled too tight in all the places not softened by grooves of age or wear. It was nearly impossible to imagine Darkholme's thin, firm lips forming anything but a perverse imitation of Kurt's signature grin.

Yet even as she tallied the grave differences between her dead friend and lover and his living imposter, Kitty's heartsick anger wavered. The longer she studied the dark, shadowed lines around his eyes and lips, the more she realized it wasn't just age written into his too-familiar indigo skin and fur—it was also experience. The slope of his eyebrows, the shape of his cheekbones, the line of his aquiline nose and the firm angle of his jaw were more than distant echoes of the man she loved; they were the same, though distorted, like seeing through gauze or water. All at once, the revelation struck her: Kurt and Darkholme were molded differently from the same clay.

Kitty bit her lip, blinked, and swallowed once. Then she thrust her wide eyes into his, battling back lava for the smallest glimpse of gold, as she asked, "What... _happened_ to you?"

Darkholme's ruby eyes flickered, almost imperceptibly. Then his thin lips tightened into a ghastly, mocking smile. "Life."

Kitty recoiled, turning back toward the door as her heart plunged and stomach churned. She was sick and furious with herself for her stupidity and betrayal, for thinking, even for a moment, that cheekbones might mean anything more than what they were—bones, the mere frame for a soul that existed somewhere else, impossibly out of reach.

The door slid open, the brighter light at her back pouring out into the long, dim corridor. Kitty paused, confronting her own elongated shadow, crawling into the dark.

Without looking back, she said, "I hope you find what you're looking for."

Darkholme made a small sound, like an imitation of amusement. Yet when he spoke, the transformation of his voice into something soft and genuine reminded her more of Kurt than almost anything else.

"I doubt that."

The saliva felt jagged in her throat as she forced another swallow, and completed her exit.

Rounding the sharp corner toward the hangar, she had to stop on a dime to avoid colliding with Logan heading in the opposite direction, probably to find her.

The moment she saw Logan's eyes, blanker than Darkholme's beneath his black-and-white mask, the soup of her emotions hardened into fury at the man responsible for Darkholme's presence, and so much else besides.

"You _bastard_," she hissed. "What the _hell_ did you think you were doing?!"

Logan's lips were a hard line. "You're gonna have to be more specific."

"Why did you bring him here?"

"It was his call."

"No, it was _your_ call. It's _always_ your call."

"That's not—"

"Kurt's been dead nearly a _year_ and you still think you own him. You think you have some kind of transcendent man-connection or whatever, bigger than me because I'm a girl or because I'm 'too young' or because I showed up two years too late or... or whatever it is. But I was _there_ for him, Logan, every time you weren't. Which was many, many times."

"I never said otherwise."

Kitty shook her head, vision clouding with tears she would never shed as she pivoted toward the wall. From the corner of her eye, she could see Logan look left and then down.

"I need him," he said simply.

Kitty shot his inscrutable visage a final, bitter look. "And you think I _don't_...? Just… fuck you… fuck…"

She gagged back her breaking voice and closed her eyes, seizing her forehead and the cold rock wall, dizzy with the uselessness of her anger. It wasn't Logan's fault. Or maybe it was but it didn't matter, because too many of the things that were wrong were beyond the scope of human influence. If the world was irrational then nothing was anybody's fault—not really. Things just _were_ and she _hated_ it, like she hated the walls closing in on her, wanting nothing more than to dissolve into the air, dropping quickly, silently, through the metal floor and into the solid rock beyond, sinking deeper and deeper until she ran out of air and had to decide whether to return or continue, and meet her destiny at centre of the world.

Within three deep breaths, Kitty recovered herself. She released the wall and straightened, though she kept her eyes carefully averted from Logan's when she said, "I'll see you back at the school."

"Sure."

Logan had the good sense not to touch her as she passed.

* * *

Next... I go back in time and write something happier (I promise!).


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